Admiral’s ‘Urgent’ Plea: Pirate-Fighting Sonic Blasters

Three years ago, Somali pirates attacked a cruise ship — and were sent running by a sonic blaster. Now, a leading Navy admiral wants to see his ships equipped with sound weapons, too. Or maybe with pain rays.

“If you’re the [commanding officer] of a DDG [destroyer] … and you see these small boats coming, all you can do is shoot at them,” Marine Maj. Gen. Tom Benes, director of expeditionary warfare for the chief of naval operations, tells Navy Times. “Nonlethal weapons give you the ability to cover that gap.”

The Navy already has about 45 of the sonic blasters, known as Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRADs. Sailors use ‘em to talk to ships as far as 500 yards away. They "plug the LRAD into an MP3 player to broadcast pre-recorded warnings in Somali or Arabic, or… to blast heavy metal music. Or they can repel small boats with a built-in klaxon," Navy Times notes. (Here’s a video of Georgian police using the things.) For another $4 million, a blaster could be outfitted on every one of Fifth Fleet’s surface ships, port and starboard.

The ray gun has been tested thousands of times. But a recently-revealed military report showed that operators still are largely ignorant about how to fire the energy weapon. Important safety features have been removed, as well. The result: test subjects have been exposed to "unconscionable risks," according to one Pentagon official. Another independent study cited the weapon’s "potential for death."

What’s more, "engineers would have to design a deck mount [for the zapper] to compensate for a ship’s pitch and roll. The Navy would have to determine where and how to mount it on a ship’s deck and whether it would be integrated into other combat systems," Navy Times observes. And after all that,"it’s unclear whether the ray could penetrate the steel bulkhead of a surface vessel."

Another potential wrinkle with deploying the Active Denial System aboard a warship is an overall Pentagon skittishness about using it against hostile subjects. Gortney’s request is just the latest from a leader in the U.S. Central Command area. Army and Marine Corps generals have asked for ray weapons to disperse riots or guard bases, but the
Pentagon has so far held off.